The present invention relates to all types of footwear, but especially to slippers which are provided with an inner sole for massaging the underside of the foot. It generally provides the wearer with continuous stimulation of the soles of the feet and has a beneficial affect on the leg and foot muscles of the wearer, particularly as it relates to enhancement of circulation in the lower extremities.
Footwear sole inserts are of course known. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,400,023 to Potter, U.S. Pat. No. 3,922,801 to Zente, U.S. Pat. No. 3,987,559 to Roberts, U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,677 to Zona, U.S. Pat. No. 5,930,916 to Connor, and finally U.S. Pat. No. 6,532,689 to Jones. All of these in one fashion or another relate to footwear with either a sole or sole insert that provides some sort of treatment affect to the bottom of the foot. However, none of these patents disclose a sole insert which stimulates the bottom of the foot in similar fashion to walking in particulate, flowable sand particles on a beach. The latter affect is not easy to achieve with a sole insert since the flow of the particulate particles under influence of the body weight will typically move out from under the weight of the body to the sides, leaving insert a particulate particle distribution that fails in its desired affect.
The result of the above described movement is that the sole insert loses its affect entirely, rendering the footwear useless for its intended purpose. To have an adequate sole insert which does allow correct flow of the particles involves both a combination of selection of the correct particles (not too heavy, such as sand) and the selection of sole inserts which have the correct configuration to prevent undesirable flow characteristics, i.e., smashing of particles to the side.
It is an object of the present invention to provide footwear of a relaxed, refreshed and massaged foot feeling, as when twisting the feet into a dry sand beach.
A further object of the present invention is to provide footwear that mimics the experience of rubbing your feet into dry particulate sand.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide footwear sole inserts having the proper particulate distribution and configuration to give the exhilarated bare foot in the sand feeling and massage affect.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide the above enumerated objectives in an economically feasible manner affordable for various types of footwear.
The method and details necessary to achieve the above objectives will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention.